It's Washington Capitals hockey, all day, all night, all the time . . . or when I get around to it

Monday, April 02, 2007

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Panthers, April 3rd

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

79 down . . . way down.Three to go.

The Caps play their last home weeknight tilt tonight, hosting the Florida Panthers, and given the Caps’ travails lately, it doesn’t . . .

“Excuse me, son…”

Coach Rockne?And the rest of the esteemed panel . . . what brings you gentlemen here?

“It's up to us to show them what we've got. Let's get down to business and carry the mail.”

I can see that, Coach Rockne, but there are only three games left.How much mail is left in the bag?

“Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”

“That’s right Vince…like I told my guys, ‘Don't worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.’”

Well, Coach Madden, that’s all well and good, but what do you do with the wagon when it’s loaded at this point in the season?

“I’ll take that one, John . . . be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

“Well said, Coach Wooden . . . there is no need for me continuing unless I'm able to improve.”

These are good ideas, but what do you make of the Caps and their post-game meeting and abuse of electronic equipment after the last game?

“Show me a good and gracious loser and I'll show you a failure.”

“That’s right, Coach Rockne . . . The only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else.”

So, Coach Madden, you don’t see anything wrong in the locker room with such an outburst?....

“Son, hockey is like football, a game that requires the constant conjuring of animosity.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth, Vince . . . how ‘bout you, Casey?”

“Well, you gotta lose 'em some of the time. When you do, lose 'em right.”

If the Caps are going to lose, then they’d better be going about it right, building the habits of character that will be rewarded when their skill and experience catch up.Tonight, they get a chance to do that against the Panthers in their last meeting of the year.And, the Caps get to drive a stake into what is left of the Panthers’ playoff hopes – a small reward for having gone 0-3-2 in the last five meetings between the clubs this year.

Here is your odd stat of the game . . . the Caps are 8-1-3 (that’s three ties, back when hockey was hockey) against Florida, all time, in the clubs’ last meeting of the year.

The other stuff

Pictures, logos, and the occasional quotes used here are the intellectual property of other folks (unless otherwise noted) of considerably more productive imagination than the author of the original stuff read here, which is our very own.